Quick Tips To Improve Your Content Strategy Right Now

Taking your content from pieces to content strategy is essential for content marketing success, so today’s guest Contributor asks this…

How is your content performing so far? Is it up to the mark and meeting your expectations?

If not, it’s time to optimize your content strategy−from content planning to writing to promoting.

So today I’m here to help you with some actionable tips to improve your content strategy right now. 

Indeed, focusing on the quality of the content will ensure you never fall short in yielding the best results.  But, consider these simple tips to improve your content strategy either as it is, or with some slight changes. Overall, quality content is a necessity.

 Ready for some tips to put into action?

Actionable Tips To Improve Your Content Strategy

The content marketing game has changed a lot. Though content is king, not all content rules the land. Only strategic content makes a difference. Let your content be that!

Understanding Your Audience Is Ever Crucial! 

A study by CMI (Content Marketing Institute) reveals that 61% of content professionals find it challenging to understand what’s important to their audiences. 

To whom are you writing? How can your content serve their needs? 

When you don’t have clarity on your audience, you can’t be a better writer. 

Indeed, using personas helps you segment the audience and write targeted content. But are you sure that you have up-to-date audience personas?

If not, then make adjustments. Alternatively, there are some simple ways to understand your audience’s minds. 

Create opportunities to interact with your customers directly. Get the clues from them. Listen to your sales and support calls, conduct surveys, make them participate in polling campaigns, interact via chatbots, etc. This way, you can understand the persuasive requirements of your customers. 

Also, social media can greatly help you get closer with your target audiences. Leverage its power!

1. Stick To Content Goals

When you are not sure about the benefits of content marketing, you will never achieve them. So, define the purpose of your writing. Whether it is email or blog post content or landing page – anything, narrow down the focus for specific channels and set goals. 

Keep in mind, sales or revenue must not be your initial content marketing goal. With effective content strategy, aim to – 

• Build rapport with the target audience
• Acquire new business prospects
• Understand the target user’s problems
• Offer solutions to their troubles
• Attract influential business partners
• Gather new business ideas
• Build credibility & trust, and so on. 

Don’t expect everything from any piece of writing. Focus on what you hope to achieve and set targets to succeed. 

• Consistency Matters

Stick to the schedule. Believe that every Monday, your fellow readers expect a mind-blowing content post or email from you. 

What happens, when you skip? 

I understand you must be busy, all the way. For that reason, you can’t make your readers wait or disappoint. 

Indeed, how does it make sense when you contribute hundreds and hundreds of articles to the web for a few months but being silent for the rest?

Never forget, the internet is over-flooded with quality articles. When you are failing to serve your audiences, your rivals are ready to hit the game. 

So be consistent in offering value and resources to users and prove your authority. 

• Be Trendy & Adaptive

People never want outdated pieces of writing. So, explore the demand for your content topic using Google Trends. Offer them content on trendy topics – relatable content that your target users are curious about learning or pursuing. 

Also, let your readers realize that you are likely to adapt to the latest trends and techniques in your niche. Stay on top of trends in your industry.

In an adaptive standpoint, make sure your content takes meaningful facets to interact with your users on various platforms. Neil Patel neatly describes it – how water takes the shape of the container you pour it into. 

Certainly, your readers should be greatly accessing your content on desktops, smartphones, or through any digital devices. Get your content served at any instant they feel hungry. 

• Focus on content copy

Certainly, you write for visitors and users, not for machines. Still, using the right words can help you get your content to appear on the early pages of SERP’s for the real seekers. 

By understanding your audience, you can identify the keywords or phrases to target. Still, copywriting services or SEO’s can better help you know the current trends of search engine algorithms. 

Writing SEO-friendly content is not an easy job when it comes to blogs or business writing. If there is a proven strategy to get your content on publicly accessible platforms, why don’t you try it? You just need some research skills to pick suitable phrases for your promotional pages. Or simply outsource the strategic writing chores to the experts. 

• Invest More

Though you are a professional writer, content marketing isn’t a cheap task for you. You must invest more in terms of time, energy, or money. 

Spending a lot of money and time on content that no one reads makes less sense. 

So, improving your content strategy proves budget-wise too. You are investing hundreds of dollars in creating videos and infographics. But, a simple email newsletter can get you more leads with minimal spending.

Do you think you have a perfect content strategy in place?

A big No! Indeed, infographics are great, but if costs are high with minimal returns, it is good to go for budget-friendly, but also worthy, content templates. Don’t hesitate!

• Engage Fellow Readers

Don’t ever think that quality content is only the kind that is informative and detailed. Not so!

It’s also about your writing tone or slang! How your content flows. Are your readers likely to continue reading for more than a few seconds?

The answers are in your writing!

Embed more engaging elements like images, videos, screenshots, etc. to engage your readers. Especially when you have proven products or services. Help users out with real case studies. Bring confidence in how your business can solve their annoying problems. 

Content is the medium. Your piece of writing speaks for you! When the content itself makes them feel bored, then you are losing the opportunities to showcase the real values of your brand offerings. As much as you keep your audience engaged, they are likely to assess your brand values. 

You have no other option. Bring out the MASTER in you. Prove to them your authority in your industry with client testimonials and meaningful storytelling. 

• Plan For Content Execution

If business sales are your goal for your writing, plan for content execution wisely. In a sales funnel, customers need different types of content in different stages. Where and how do they prefer consuming the information? Get to know this, first. 

Accordingly, build a content plan that alerts you to what content you have to create daily, weekly, monthly, etc. 

The next big step is to amplify your content. You are only half done by just creating the content. Sharing gives complete meaning to content, but only by promoting it does that happen. 

Fortunately, there are plenty of free platforms and resources to amplify your content. SEO is one of the strategies to boost your content. Besides, you can try out influencer marketing, content syndication platforms, Q&A mediums like Quora, etc. to spread your content. Never stop!

Final Words

Tips to improve your content strategy – all you have set in place? But how do you know if it works for you or not? 

If you create content to bring awareness about a topic, check how it really performs in real-time. Interact with the target readers with surveys to know how effectively your content campaign is performing.  

Most importantly, keep refreshing your content with up-to-date data. Don’t simply bury the old content in archives. Please give it a second life by repurposing it and keeping it current. You have spent a lot on creating such a valuable piece of content, so use it well. 

Hope you find these ideas to optimize your content marketing strategy helpfully. Share your views in the comments section.